Neighbor rescues an elderly woman from burning Bogota home

Bogota firefighters wait in the wings as several colleagues rip apart walls and ceilings to find the source of a fire on the second floor of an Elm Avenue home Sunday night.

Thanks to the quick actions of a Bogota man, a woman's life was saved on Sunday night.

Around 10:45 p.m., a resident on the 100 block of Elm Avenue noticed smoke pouring out of a neighbor's home and an elderly woman hanging out of an upper floor window, trying to escape. Panicked, she started banging on the door of another neighbor, Richard Opthof.

Opthof, an emergency room nurse at Overlook Hospital, grabbed a six-foot-tall ladder, scaled the burning home and brought the elderly resident to safety, he said. Black smoke continued to billow out of what was quickly turning into a tattered wooden shell as he relayed the ordeal around 11:15 p.m.

"She was sleeping. She had no idea what happened," Opthof said. "I'm just glad I could help on my one night off from the hospital."

The rescued woman, whose age and identity were not immediately released by Bogota police officers on the scene, was transported to Hackensack University Medical Center. Her son, with whom she shares the home, was in the Bronx at the time, according to Opthof. It was he who contacted the man as the bearer of both good and bad news.

"Your mom is fine but your house is on fire," he yelled into a cell phone. "Listen to me. She's fine, but you need to get here now."

Meanwhile, a long line of Bogota and Ridgefield Park fire trucks and ambulances filled Elm Avenue as firefighters shattered and sawed through every window, wall and ceiling of 109 Elm Ave. to locate the fire's source. About one hour into such efforts, with the smoke only growing thicker and darker, they had yet to determine a cause, according to Bogota Councilman and Emergency Management Coordinator Tito Jackson.

Flames were shooting out of the rear and right side of the home when firefighters arrived, he said, but no other details were known.

"I just can't say enough about the heroic actions of the neighbor," Jackson added of Opthof. "Our fire department was here within minutes, but she was hanging out of a window. This could have been a very different story if he didn't help."